Essential X-Men volume 1

This month sees the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past and so it's time for an extended look at the X-Men's most acclaimed era...

Essential X-Men volume 1 collects Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94-119, featuring the early days of the X-Men's mid 1970s relaunch as the All-New, All-Different X-Men. (As we've already seen, issues #1-93 have since been covered by Essential Uncanny/Classic X-Men volumes 1, 2 & 3.) The initial Giant-Size issue is written by Len Wein and drawn by Dave Cockrum. Both carry forward onto the regular series but almost immediately Chris Claremont takes over the writing and continues for the rest of the volume (and over a decade more after that) with a few issues seeing Bill Mantlo give plot assistance. Midway through Cockrum is succeeded by John Byrne. There are a couple of fill-ins drawn by Bob Brown and Tony DeZuniga. The reprint of the Giant-Size issue includes three reprints of back-up features profiling Cyclops, Ice-Man and Marvel Girl written by Roy Thomas, Arnold Drake and Linda Fite respectively and all drawn by Werner Roth.

(It's a little known point but Giant-Size X-Men had a second issue as well, published some four months later. However by this stage the Giant-Size line had switched to all-reprint titles before being eventually phased out a couple of months afterwards. Giant-Size X-Men #2 reprinted X-Men #57-59.)

This was the very first Essential volume to be released back in 1996 and unsurprisingly it does several things differently from its successors. Most obviously it starts reprinting the X-Men from the 1975 relaunch rather than the original 1960s series; later Essential runs such as Doctor Strange, Man-Thing or Silver Surfer have started from the original series and collected subsequent revivals under the same banner. The cliffhanger ending from issue #119 was left out of the original printing but restored early on. And the reprinted material in Giant-Size X-Men #1 has been included whereas most subsequent Essentials have left out reprints unless they've been directly incorporated into the narrative. (On a much more minor note the first editions of the original 1996 volumes - this plus Essential Spider-Man volume 1 and Essential Wolverine volume 1 - have the name on the spine running upwards whereas all later volumes and editions use the more conventional downwards.)

Giant-Size X-Men #1 is one of the most reprinted of all Marvel issues and quite possibly the post-Silver Age record holder. (Mike's Amazing World of Comics lists ten complete reprints plus one truncated, and that's just in the North American market. Discounting one as a cover variant that's still an amazing haul and several reprints ahead of obvious rival contenders such as the first appearances of Thanos, the Punisher, Wolverine or Venom.) The story is to the point, if a bit low key, but does manage to successfully introduce all the new characters. Not much has changed since the ending of the earlier run bar the Beast going out into the world and Havok and Lorna Dane now being an integrated part of the original team and more clearly an item now. Otherwise things are pretty much where they were left. Wisely the story places the emphasis on the new characters and reintroduces the premise through them as Professor X takes an interesting journey around the world, recruiting both new and old characters to assemble a replacement team. With fourteen characters and just thirty-six pages there's not much space to detail them all, but it soon becomes clear that the team has some dysfunctionality. Oddly in light of where he'd go, Wolverine is rather subdued and it's Sunfire who fulfils the angry loner role. I do also find Banshee's dialogue to be overstereotyped and keep wondering when he's going to start getting drunk and rambling on about little people just to complete the role. All in all the issue succeeds in injecting new blood into the series but doesn't offer a great deal of excitement to suggest an ongoing series would be more dynamic than the last time around. That would come later.

The new X-Men are an interesting mixture of both existing and new creations, with a strong international mix. It takes some time for all their powers to be explicitly identified and highlighted and their backgrounds to be filled in, but the diversity is clear from the outset. We have Nightcrawler, a German circus performer with blue fur who can climb walls, teleport and even disappear in the shadows. A few of these elements are familiar from the portrayal of the Beast, but Nightcrawler comes with a very different personality, combining fun loving with great insight and loneliness. Storm is introduced as a Kenyan goddess who can control the weather but we subsequently learn of her upbringing from being the daughter of a transatlantic middle class marriage to being an orphaned street thief in Cairo to her long journey on foot to Kenya. Colossus is a Russian farm boy, loyal to his family, both his birth one and his new adopted one. Banshee had previously appeared as a villain in the series's original run but here the Irishman follows in the footsteps of the Mimic and becomes another to find redemption; despite being older than the rest of the team he still fits in. Wolverine is something of a cipher at first and only slowly is his background revealed; we know from the outset that he's a Canadian government agent from his battle with the Hulk but only gradually do we learn other things about him such as that his claws are part of his body and he has learnt to speak Japanese well, but there's no exploration of his family life and past the way there is with so many others. Sunfire doesn't last long though he pops up again at the end of the volume; his background had been sketched at the end of the original run where we saw a young Japanese man torn between his father and uncle representing the debate on the country's post war direction. Finally Thunderbird is a brash, self-confident Native American Apache who resents the direction his people have taken and seeks to prove himself as a tough fighter in the old tradition.

The X-Men's adventures continue from issue #94 onwards with new material rather than a brand new issue #1, a reminder of how the older practice of retaining numbering wherever possible was still prevalent. However the series rapidly puts itself in a forward direction, starting with the departure of all the original team bar Cyclops, leaving an almost all-new, all-different team. With Sunfire also leaving, having only ever agreed to perform a single mission and Thunderbird killed off at the end of issue #95, the team is reduced to a manageable six field members plus Professor X guiding and mentoring them; a size that allows for the individual characters to be developed and focused upon at a time when the series was bimonthly and had as little as seventeen pages an issue. The Beast, Havok and Lorna Dane (now using the codename Polaris) all make brief reappearances in subsequent stories (presumably the Angel and Ice-Man were too busy with the Champions of Los Angeles) and on two separate occasions the new X-Men face what appear to be the original team members, right down to the Beast's original look, but they are in fact constructs of one kind or another.

However it's Cyclops who is the one classic member to stay around though Marvel Girl drifts back into the team. Cyclops is very much his traditional self but gets some development as well, with his powers enhanced (most clearly symbolised by a new and larger visor) then later more of his past is revealed as we learn how he was orphaned and the revelation that Corsair of the Starjammers is his father, though Scott only guesses at this after their initial meeting is over. There are also steps forward in his relationship with Marvel Girl but then comes her great transformation that also changes how he relates to her such that when he believes her dead there is no great mourning. Marvel Girl's transformation into the Phoenix after she pilots a space shuttle back to Earth and acquires enhanced powers is one of the best remembered moments during the run and there are already signs of how the excess power is changing Jean Grey in multiple ways, making her the most powerful member of the team but also distancing her a little. Professor X also comes to believe his students have perished and this sends him into deep grief but at the same time he and the alien Shi'Ar princess Lilandra are developing their feelings. We also get more of Xavier's past as we learn of his youthful romance with Moira MacTaggart and then his travels around the world as he discovered not all mutants use their power for good. Whether new or old, every member of the team gets given some strong material that fleshes them out and makes the reader care about what happens to them.

The series has ambition, as shown with the Shi'Ar storyline that takes the team into outer space and introduces a large number of characters, but the emphasis is very much on characterisation. Combined with dynamic art that starts well with Dave Cockrum and hits amazing heights with John Byrne, the scripting by Chris Claremont brings to life each character, makes them distinct from one another but also makes the reader care about what happens to them. It's easy to see why the title soon became a cult favourite even if it wasn't engaging in the big crowd pleasers that could draw in a wider audience. Other than the Shi'Ar storyline most of the foes encountered by the X-Men are either return appearances or fairly mundane foes. Except for the Beast briefly returning to his roots there are no significant guest stars. And there's also less of the two big themes that have dominated X-Men in most other eras with only limited attention devoted to how society reacts to mutants whilst the school element is either downplayed or confined to off-panel events as Professor X and Cyclops work to mould the group into a coherent team who function together - a necessity driven home in their second encounter with Magneto when initially every charges in as an individual and gets beaten down in likewise manner.

These battles bring in a variety of foes amidst a period of creativity. The old foe list includes the likes of Magneto, the Sentinels (under a new controller), the Juggernaut, Sauron, Mesmero and Count Nefaria, all from the earlier X-Men issues. There's also the Ani-Men (from Daredevil), Firelord (from Thor), Warhawk (from Iron Fist), Garokk and Zaladane (both from Ka-Zar's strip in Astonishing Tales) and Moses Magnum (from Giant-Size Spider-Man). Amongst new creations are Black Tom Cassidy, Banshee's brother now working with the Juggernaut, the Entity, Professor X's dark side, and Kierrok the Damned and the N'Garai night demons. The Canadian agency Department H makes its first appearance as it dispatches Weapon Alpha (later the Vindicator then Guardian) to try to retrieve Wolverine. The Shi'Ar story introduces a variety of characters including foes such as the Emperor D'Ken, a new wearer of the Eric the Red costume and the Soul Drinker. And there's the Imperial Guard, a thinly disguised homage to the Legion of Super-Heroes (who had been drawn by Cockrum whilst at DC) and the interstellar pirates the Starjammers. These issues must have been a nightmare to drawn with so many new characters, and even more so as Byrne took over from Cockrum mid story.

The series may be highly dynamic but there are, however, some areas where the series feels dated, particularly some of the dialogue that exaggerates accents with Banshee suffering particularly badly though others got caught up as well, including a cameo by Jimmy Carter. The portrayal of Ireland also raised my eyebrows with everything from a post office sporting the crown symbol to passenger steam trains in the late 1970s and I kept expecting someone to start going on about the little people. Then a bunch of leprechauns showed up.

In spite of these odd moments the volume as a whole represents a triumphant return to form for the X-Men. Rather than merely bringing back the existing team for more of the same, a bold move was taken to transform the team for a new generation of readers and it works. Given strong characterisation and dynamic art and the result is a strong series that just grows and grows. This is a very strong volume and (leaving aside the issue of jumping over the Silver Age run) it's truly worthy of having been the very first Essential volume to have been released.

Essential Captain Marvel volume 1

Essential Captain Marvel volume 1 contains the Captain Marvel strips from Marvel Super-Heroes #12-13 then Captain Marvel #1-21 and a bonus story from the comedy series Not Brand Echh #9. Marvel Super-Heroes was an anthology series, previously entitled Fantasy Masterpieces, which variously combined try-out new material with reprints from the Golden Age; later it would carry reprints of more recent material including a long run reprinting the Incredible Hulk. Stan Lee writes the first Marvel Super-Heroes and is then followed by Roy Thomas who writes up until issue #4 of the titled series and again from #17 and also the Not Brand Echh story. Arnold Drake and Gary Friedrich write most of the intervening issues, with one other by Archie Goodwin. Gene Colan draws as far as issue #4 and also the Not Brand Echh story, then the others are drawn by Don Heck, Dick Ayers, Frank Springer, Tom Sutton, Gil Kane and John Buscema.

Captain Marvel was not only one of the last Marvel Silver Age superhero features to get an Essential volume, but was also the last one to be created in that era. After the initial burst of creativity that produced everyone from the Fantastic Four to Daredevil, there was then a period in which the emphasis was on consolidation rather than expansion, giving pre-existing characters their own strips, and the debuts seemed to be done with. Then in 1967 came this new feature. Was he the product of a late surge of creativity that led to Stan Lee and his artists to come up with just one more character? Or did he serve some ulterior purpose?

Even without consulting wider comic histories it seems clear it was the ulterior purpose and it shows. Captain Marvel appears to be the first in a long line of Marvel characters created for the purpose of securing intellectual property rights. Often such characters get rushed into print before the idea has been thoroughly thought through, resulting in some rather confusing early years as the premise, powers and/or backstory get revised in order to work better, and eventually the character is given up with the codename transferred to a new hero, often one with no connection at all to the original. Unfortunately this pattern is all too clear with Captain Marvel. Over the course of this single volume we get a series that starts off as a tale of an alien military spy yet by the end he's become a cosmic powered hero fused with a human being. The series got its first cancellation during the course of this volume yet it was revived barely six months later as a bimonthly. The last regular issue in the volume ends with a note explaining this has been a try-out and "Now, his fate is in your hands -- you, the reader! We'll be waiting for your verdict!" But these two issues were just a try-out and the series did not continue for another two years. It's hard to disguise that the series had not been terribly successful and yet Marvel kept on trying to keep the name "Captain Marvel" on the newsstands.

The real purpose was clearly down to the "use it or lose it" requirements of trademark law that mean a company can't simply hold onto a name to prevent competitors from using it; they must regularly actively exploit the trademark. Exactly how frequently can vary, as can the precise means by which the mark is used, but one consequence is a particular code name can appear on the shelves repeatedly and for multiple characters simply because of the risk of otherwise losing it. This is why names like "Spider-Woman" have been used so many times and also why some of the various "Captain Marvel"s have no connection to each other whatsoever. The name "Captain Marvel" had been used before; first for a highly successful character published by Fawcett Comics in the 1940s & 1950s until DC brought a copyright suit, and then the name had been briefly used by M. F. Enterprises for a short-lived hero. Clearly the risk of rivals being able to publish comics with "Marvel" in the title was too great and so Marvel were clearly moving to tie up the trademark before yet another company printed a comic called "Captain Marvel". Indeed when the Marvel series was revived again in 1972 from issue #22, it came just a few months before DC revived the Fawcett Captain Marvel (since DC could hardly breach its own copyright). Had Marvel foreseen its rival's move and rushed to reinforce its mark? It just served to reinforce the pattern as a whole succession of Captain Marvels would be wheeled out over the years. (DC revived the Fawcett character but because Marvel had already got to the trademark, DC have been unable to sell their version under the logo of "Captain Marvel" - although this doesn't affect what the character is called inside the strip - leading to the use of alternatives such as "Shazam".) But in the process Marvel forget to create a particular exciting scenario and series, and eventually had to change just about everything other than the lead character's name.

The series starts by tapping into the contemporary fads of spies and space science fiction. We see Mar-Vell, a captain in the Kree armed forces, sent on a mission to Earth, though the precise details of his mission vary between revenge for earlier defeats and spying upon the world to determine the threat level. The original given mission is ridiculous for one man, even one as skilled as Mar-Vell, so it's no surprise that it gets changed early on under a different writer. However the new mission becomes equally silly because a Kree scout ship is hiding in orbit and observing Mar-Vell all the time - so why not just cut out the middle man and do the spying from orbit without the risk of arousing suspicions on Earth? A lot of the problem is that the real reason for sending Mar-Vell onto the planet is the jealousy of his superior, Colonel Yon-Rogg, for Mar-Vell's relationship with medic Una. Yon-Rogg belongs to a line of suitors who believe that simply disposing of a rival without even concealing their involvement or hatred will result in a woman falling into their arms. I don't have the real life statistics to hand to check just how many men have succeeded with this method of courting, but I suspect it's very few if that.

There's an attempt to make this a science-fiction romantic story with the regular complications of Yon-Rogg trying to get Mar-Vell either killed on his mission or executed as a traitor, but it rapidly becomes tiresome, even when an additional angle is added to the triangle in the form of human Carol Danvers (later Ms. Marvel then Binary then Warbird then Ms. Marvel again then yet another Captain Marvel - have I missed any out?). It's trying to give a sense of purpose and tragedy to the story but we don't see a great deal of Una and what we do see just doesn't make her a compelling character but instead a weeping wet blanket. It's hard to grasp just what Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg see in her to the point that the Colonel is prepared to destroy one of his best officers in pursuit of her. The result is that the core motivation for the hatred between Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg just doesn't convince and so we're left with an endless succession of adventures as Mar-Vell settles on Earth, assuming the guise of the dead Dr Walter Lawson, and finds himself torn between his orders and his realisation of the value of the planet. As a result he comes to the protection of humans multiple times, under the "Americanized" form of his name, Captain Marvel, and equally regularly has to justify his conduct as Yon-Rogg tries to get him prosecuted.

The idea of the noble enemy who comes to a society with orders to destroy it yet rebels when they discovers what the inhabitants are like had been done before with the Silver Surfer and no doubt with many earlier ones, but often it isn't too obvious just what they see in the society or how it is they always seem to meet the best examples. Here Mar-Vell spends most of his time around a missile base in Florida or at a nearby motel with a suspicious night clerk, interacting with a limited number of base personnel and townsfolk, and getting caught up in protecting humans from various alien incursions. At the base the main characters are the base commander General Bridges and the security chief Carol Danvers. Carol is presented as a clear potential romantic interest from the outset and we soon get the all too familiar scenario whereby she falls for the hero but is hostile to his secret identity. Eventually she and Mar-Vell share a kiss, to the delight of the watching Yon-Rogg and the horror of Una, but nothing really comes of it and Carol disappears when the series overhauls itself.

Mar-Vell battles a number of menaces ranging from a Kree sentry to the Super Skrull. The latter is, I think, the first time a Kree and a Skrull had faced off in a Marvel comic though we learn they've been enemies for centuries. Other existing Marvel foes include Quasimodo the living computer. There are new threats such as the Metazoid, a mutated being created by the Communists, or Solam, a solar energy creature drawn to Earth by accident, the Aakons, another alien race, the Organization, a criminal outfit, the Cybrex, a robot built by the real Walter Lawson, the Man-Slayer, a robot created by Communists and the Puppet Master (in a crossover with the Avengers and th Sub-Mariner, however only the Captain Marvel issue is included here). There are also the inevitable clashes with other heroes such as Namor the Sub-Mariner, Iron Man and, later on, the Hulk, though the Captain America depicted on the volume's cover (reused from issue #17) is in fact an illusion generated by Mar-Vell to draw Rick Jones in.

From issue #11 onwards the series starts to transform itself into something different and steadily ditches a lot of the baggage. Una is casually killed off by a stray shot in battle with the Aakons, and Mar-Vell boards a rocket which gets thrown into deep space where he meets an all-powerful being who gives him enhanced powers, including flight, casting illusions and teleportation. Subsequently we learn that Mar-Vell has long been manipulate by the Kree ministers Ronan the Accuser and Zarek as part of a planned coup against the Supreme Intelligence. Zarek is motivated by concerns about the Kree racial stock but fortunately for a black and white reprint this is about the only moment that touches upon the racial tensions within the Kree Empire whereby blue-skinned Kree have come to see themselves as the original pure stock and are hostile towards pink-skinned Kree such as Mar-Vell, seeing them as the result of mixing with lesser races. As a reward the Supreme Intelligence gives Mar-Vell yet further powers and a new costume, his most familiar one, but the hero is now cut off from the Kree. He is soon trapped in the Negative Zone and the only escape, however temporary, is through bonding with another being and regularly trading places with them. And so Rick Jones is lured into a cave in the desert.

When introduced in issue #17, Rick Jones seems several years younger than he's normally portrayed, looking almost like a child. Was this just an error by Gil Kane or was it a deliberate homage to Billy Batson, the original Fawcett Captain Marvel? There are other elements to his introduction that feel like a retread of how Billy was introduced to Shazam, and indeed in the pre-Crisis Fawcett & DC stories Captain Marvel and Billy were treated as separate personalities. But whatever the motivation, the result is that Captain Marvel now shares his existence with a mortal. After a final tidy-up with a showdown in which Yon-Rogg is killed and Carol saved, the series now embarks fully in its new direction.

However the last few issues are just strange. In one Rick finds himself caught up in a strange sociological experiment run by a scientist who uses a luxury block of flats as a giant laboratory. Then in the revived try-out Mar-Vell clashes with both the Hulk and the Rat Pack, a bunch of hi-tech looters. By the end of the series everything has changed beyond recognition and it's no longer clear at all just what it's all about.

Captain Marvel is a series that's quite well drawn and the individual issues flow quickly without any obvious stinkers. But the overall direction of the series is a total mess and the result is a rather meandering flow. The Not Brand Echh story included here plays on the fact that "Captain Marvin" can't remember what his mission is. Whether by accident or design it winds up parodying the series in more ways than one as it really doesn't know what its purpose is for. This was one of the earliest series whose sole reason for existing was legal rather than creative and its artificialness is all too easy to see.

Essential Classic X-Men volume 3 - creator labels

Yet again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Essential Classic X-Men volume 2

Although I'm mostly looking at the first volumes of various series at the moment, when the posts on a particular series prove especially popular I'll take a look at the next one in the series. It's no surprise which one is the most popular so far...

The X-Men's 1960s adventures continue in this second volume, which altered the title used for this particular Essential series but I detailed that last time. Essential Classic X-Men volume 2 contains X-Men #25 to #53, plus Avengers #53 which was the second half of a crossover. Bonus material includes a few unused covers - issue #33 went through a number of attempts before the final version, which is also used for the volume's cover.

Most of the writing, including the Avengers issue, is by Roy Thomas. Gary Friedrich scripts a couple of issues and Arnold Drake writes the last six. The art is more mixed, starting with Werner Roth and then a succession of others including Ross Andru, Don Heck and George Tuska, plus single issue jobs by Jack Sparling, Dan Adkins and Jim Steranko. Some issues are drawn in combinations of two or even three. The Avengers issue is drawn by John Buscema.

This volume covers nearly half the original run of the X-Men. And reading it through it soon becomes clear why the series was getting into dire straits sales wise. Much of the run seems to tread water, there's an early example of subplots that run on and on and don't deliver particularly great conclusions, there are twists to the status quo introduced and then ignored, there's a split in the later issues to carry a back-up detailing the origins of the various X-Men and even that can't get things in order, and there's a general sense of a lack of direction even when a major status quo changer comes in the middle. This volume shows a somewhat tired series that doesn't really know what it's doing or where it's going.

Part of this is rooted in the stability of the line-up. Despite being a school with a mission to find and train mutants to use their powers to help others, there are no permanent additions to the team at this stage. One of the only two significant changes in this run of issues comes at the end of issue #39 when the team adopt new, individualistic costumes with Cyclops adopted the predominantly blue affair he's best known for. The issue's cover is used as the artwork on the volume's back cover (at least on the first edition) but recoloured and it gives the impression the Angel has a bare torso, bar braces; however it turns out this is an error on the new colourist's part and in fact his top is yellow. There is a brief recruitment drive when membership is offered to Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch and even Spider-Man, but each declines for their own reasons. The one new member added is the Mimic but his arrogance is all too clear and he demands the deputy leadership of the X-Men as a condition for joining. He never really gels with the others and his powers are limited to copying others', but after a few issues he gets a good send out that actually makes use of his unique abilities when in a fight with the Super Adaptoid their powers cancel each other out. Earlier he almost succumbs to the Adaptoid's offer to enhance his powers, but he realises that this will mean slavery and he quickly turns. He leaves with his powers seemingly negated by the encounter but retires from the team on favourable terms.

Otherwise there are a couple of future members of the X-Men introduced here in the form of fist the Banshee and later Lorna Dane (who doesn't take on a codename at this stage) but neither actually joins the team within this volume. However we do get a major shake-up in issue #42 when Professor X sacrifices his life to save the world, having been suffering from a terminal disease and rushing to get the team's training complete in time. This creates a new dynamic with Cyclops now in full command of the team, but it isn't explored too deeply at this point due to two multi-part tales involving Magneto and the temporary disbandment of the team on the orders of Fred Duncan, a federal agent Professor X had worked with, on the basis that they'll be more effective and less vulnerable if scattered across the country. This leads to a brief run of couple adventures but the format is soon abandoned in favour of having the whole team back together.

There are a few new villains introduced but they've rarely made much long-term impact. Amongst them are El Tigre, a hunter who is possessed by the Mayan god Kukulcán, the Cobalt Man, a scientist who is trying to copy Iron Man's armour and sell it to the military, Mekano, the neglected son of a philanthropist taking his revenge out on his father's donations, or the Frankenstein Monster, who here is portrayed as an alien who inspired the novel, but it's my understanding the later Monster of Frankenstein series used a different character closer to the original. There's Grotesk, an alien who wants to destroy the Earth, and finally Mesmero, a mesmeriser, and his minions the Demi-Men. The big foe across a dozen issues is the shadowy organisation "Factor Three". New characters introduced as part of the storyline include the Banshee, who turns good by the end of the storyline, the Ogre, who would later pop up in Thunderbolts, the shape-shifting Changeling, who would later become the basis of Morph in the 1990s X-Men cartoon, and the organisation's leader, the Mutant Master who turns out to be an alien.

That's not to say there aren't return appearances by old foes, with both the Juggernaut and Magneto popping up twice, with the latter having reassembled several of his followers in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants including the Toad, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Factor Three contains a number of old foes in the form of the Blob, the Vanisher, Mastermind and Unus the Untouchable. Foes from other series include the Puppet Master, following on from an encounter in Fantastic Four and the Super Adaptoid from Captain America's strip in Tales of Suspense, complete with the powers of Avengers Captain America, the Wasp, Goliath and Hawkeye. Another story brings an encounter with the underworld rulers the Mole Man, originally from Fantastic Four, and Tyrannus, from the Incredible Hulk, as they continue their conflict first shown in the Hulk's strip in Tales to Astonish. Yet another visitor from Fantastic Four is the living computer Quasimodo, working through the device Computo and using robots called "Cybertrons" (possibly the first use of that term by Marvel, nearly a decade before they created the backstory for the Transformers). An even further visitor from Fantastic Four is Blastaar, a deposed monarch from the Negative Zone. Then there's the Warlock, who had previously appeared under the name "Merlin" in Thor's strip in Journey into Mystery. Making his first Silver Age appearance is the Red Raven from the Golden Age Marvel series of the same name who has now become embittered against the human race.

Throughout these issues there are a lot of threads that get abandoned. At the start of the volume Jean Grey has been transferred to a normal university, but often comes back for weekends and her visits coincide with virtually all the adventures. However it's soon forgotten that she's been moved out and eventually she's just back at Xavier's school like all the others. Another thread involves her fellow university student Ted Rogers who seems to have worked out her identity, but he disappears along with her university days. Later the team disbands by order of federal agent Fred Duncan but after a few issues everyone's back to working together without any mention of the order. The origin stories also experience a slapdash approach when the Beast's story is given before the Angel's despite the internal chronology establishing the latter as having been recruited first (and the end of Iceman's story promised the Angel would be next). Even in the stories themselves captions notice the discrepancy and promise we'll get the Angel's story though we'll have to wait until volume 3 to see if that promise is met.

The origins back-up strip starts in issue #38 and shows in succession how Professor Xavier was spurred into action and steadily recruited the individual X-Men one by one, rescuing them from foes ranging from the Living Diamond to general hate mobs. The start of the series hadn't felt the need to cover this ground in detail, having contented itself with showing Marvel Girl as a new arrival to set the general scene, but now we get the background on Cyclops, Iceman and the Beast as we see how they handled the emergence of their powers and the reactions of those around them. The series also includes one part profile pieces for each of these X-Men, exploring their powers and abilities and answering details such as how Cyclops operates his visor without touching it or how Iceman produces so much ice.

Overall this run of the series feels rather flat, probably because what are meant to be the big dramatic moments often come off somewhat flat. Factor Three is the first example of an X-Men subplot that feels like it lasts forever and the ultimate pay-off isn't terribly interesting. Had the storyline appeared as a standalone then it would have been just about okay but here we get a lengthy build-up and the plot running in the background during other encounters, with Professor X kidnapped in the process and Spider-Man encountering one of the organisation's robots. When the storyline finally kicks into higher gear with a plot to start a nuclear war thought it soon becomes clear the Mutant Master's plan is not just to destroy human civilisation and allow mutants to take over the planet but instead to wipe out all life completely. Oddly despite being the big storyline built up to over so many months, this isn't the point at which Professor X is killed off. Instead he meets his end in a shorter story just three issues later which also sees a new foe trying to destroy the world. It just feels highly repetitive for the sake of it. The crossover with the Avengers also feels rather less than such a moment should be, especially considering how rare crossovers were back in the 1960s. It is at least based around the common link of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants once containing Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch before they became Avengers, with the siblings having now returned to Magneto in the hope of haling the Scarlet Witch's wounds and escaping from all human contact whilst Magneto plans new conquests. However it tries to do too much and is particularly let down by the middle X-Men issue detouring to introduce the Red Raven into the Silver Age. Roy Thomas's enthusiasm for the Golden and Atlas Ages heroes is well known and at times his work to reincorporate them into modern continuity has produced wonders. Here though it just provides a needless distraction as the Angel flies across the Atlantic to fetch help and ultimately as the story ends with the Raven going back into suspended animation it's a tale that just didn't need to be told at this point.

There's a bit of character development with Warren finally giving up on his attraction to Jean and subsequently being reunited with childhood friend Candy Southern, whilst Hank and Bobby face the recurring problem of their double dates with Vera and Zelda being interrupted by events that cause them to rush off and switch into costume. Towards the end of the volume Vera and Zelda disappear amidst the confusion of changing writers and the temporary disbandment of the team and by the end Bobby seems set to become an eventual item with Lorna Dane. Meanwhile Scott often seems to be getting closer to Jean but at times seems to muck it up by not always displaying enough outward concern for her. Still these are at least some steps forward.

However overall this is still a rather turgid run on the series and it's easy to see why the alarm bells were ringing by the end of it. Few of the individual stories really excite and it's also succumbing to a mess of new writers ignoring some of the subplots and developments set up by their predecessors. There are references to the overall problems mutants face in the world, particularly in the back-up origin stories, but very little is actually done with the theme beyond some villains expressing a general superiority viewpoint. Otherwise we're left with a team of heroes staggering on from one general threat to another and not really charting out any particularly new or exciting territory. This one is for completists.